So far, and I stress so far, this YA book has gleaned three national awards. It was Top Award-Winner in the "Fiction & Literature: Young Adult Fiction" category. The work was a Silver Medal Winner, 2008 - Moonbeam Children's Books Award and First Place Winner in the "Teen Fiction" category from Reader Views Literary Awards. To be honest, it deserved each of these and so very much more. This is one of the better YA books I have had the pleasure of reading over the past five years.

As you will note, the plot of this story has pretty well been covered by some marvelously written reviews here so I will not linger on that aspect of this work overly long. Anna, a young girl, age 14 during the 1840s is displaced after a disastrous flood wipes out most of her town and the dreaded disease typhus takes many members of her community...indeed Anna herself barely recovers from this disease that took to many in those days. Her father, a successful business man is financially destroyed and must seek to rebuild his life in Boston. There being nowhere else to place Anna, he turns her over to a Shaker Community for care and education until he can get his life together and send for her. Anna's life adventure starts here as does this work by Wim Coleman and Pat Perrin.

There are aspects of this book that truly shine and should be noted. The setting and time frame the story takes place was during an extremely tumultuous period of our history. As a background for the story we have the dubious and questionable war with Mexico; which was more or less a training session for the horrific Civil War to come. The Shakers, who were quite opposed to the practice of slavery highlight one of the darkest periods of our young nation. We have our young heroine learning hard lessons in life, not the least being that not all people are good, not all people are what they seem and not all that glitters is gold. These are hard lessons, but lessons the youth of today still face.

Probably of the greatest fascination to me personally is the wonderful research that went into the writing of this work. I am not by any stretch of the term an "expert" in this area, but my wife is, and I have learned much through sheer osmosis over the years. While the Shaker Community featured here is fictional, it is a composite of a number of these communities and the authors have gone to great lengths to be as accurate in the portrayal of Shaker life, philosophy, religious beliefs, ceremonies, ethics and general life style. As one reviewer has pointed out, there are only three members of this sect left today, and it is an interesting part of our history; a part that our youth should be aware of. Coleman and Perrin have certainly done their research and done it well, leaving few stones unturned.

The authors have skillfully woven the presence of Henry David Thoreau into the story. Thoreau was quite fascinated and indeed sympathetic to the Shaker way of life and in reading his writings and knowing a bit of the Shaker way of life, one can readily see why. H.D.T. is one of my favorites so even though we have a fictional account of his involvement; it was never the less gratifying. Again, the authors have done a very nice job is representing and portraying this unique writer and American literary legend.

Also of note, if you read this work carefully, you will find that the hopes, dreams, attitudes and problems facing the young of that day, are not all that much different than we find today...yes, the circumstances are a bit different and the trappings are certainly not the same, but the basic challenges are the same. Children at this age change so quickly and mature so fast that you can almost see the changes happen month by month. Attitudes of today are quickly replaced by attitudes six months down the road as the maturation process takes place. The authors have been quite skillful in portraying these phenomena through Anna.

Now we have the question....is this a girl's book? I can remember years ago that one of the most popular books in our school and town library, for both boys and girls was Dorothy Gilman's wonderful work Girl in Buckskin. This work, Anna's Life is of the same ilk, and I see no problem what so ever in young boys enjoying this one as much as young girls. As a matter of fact, this is one of those novels that while targeted for the YA market, is just as interesting and just as valid for readers of all ages. Hey, I am an old guy and I enjoyed ever word of it. Good writing is good writing and a well told story is a well told story and there is no getting around it.

Now this is not a religious book although that aspect is an important part of the story...hey, we are talking Shakers here; one cannot be separated from the other. As one reviewer has pointed out, most of the typical teen problems of today are addressed in this work and we find that after all this time things are really not all that different. The young reader here will be able to relate to some of the trials and tribulations in this work as well as receiving a wonderful history lesson. The book moves quite quickly and I doubt if there will be much reading boredom involved with this one.

This work would be an ideal read for a class project and certainly belongs in every public and school library, as well in the personal collection of any young (or old for that matter) reader.

I am quite enthusiastic about this work. It is very, very well written, informative, entertaining and a pure joy to read. I do recommend this one highly.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks